Equity mutual fund: Performances, persistence and fund Rankings

This study focuses on open-ended equity mutual funds in Thailand. The funds’ performances were examined whether the returns significantly and persistently out-perform the market; whether the use of different measures leads funds with similar rankings. The analyses use various metrics: the traditional fund performance evaluation measures and Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) technique; Pearson’s correlation coefficients, and cover six different investment horizons. The results suggest that open-ended equity mutual funds analyzed in this study significantly out-perform the market, and the funds ’ positive performance sustains for 3-month time-period of investment, at least. The top five funds managed by the Aberdeen, Bangkok Bank and Siam Commercial Bank Asset Management Companies out-perform the bottom five funds between 0.1912 and 1.3187 for six time-periods of investment from 1-month to 5-year. Finally, it is concluded that for individual investors, the results provided by this study can be guidelines for selecting mutual funds for investment